


3 am

by crickets



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-24
Updated: 2008-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 03:50:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are lines he draws. There are lines she can't cross.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3 am

**Author's Note:**

> [Original Post](http://super-kc.livejournal.com/107065.html)

It’s 3 am.

The phone rings and Katee’s voice is thick with sleep and sex and booze.

“Come to California,” she says, and Callum can hear someone, a _male_ someone, moving around her in the background.

He says her name, a warning, but makes no claims that he’s been woken up. She’d know better anyway. His hands are covered in reds and browns and whites, the evidence. He always did paint best at night. Maybe that’s why he does it. It keeps him busy during all those restless hours.

“Please?” she begs.

He lights a cigarette, lets the lighter clink shut, and takes a slow dramatic drag, one she’s sure to hear. “And what’s wrong with Canada?”

“I hate the fucking snow,” she lies.

“You do not. And I still hate fucking Hollywood.”

“You do not.” She’s right, he doesn’t. Not _entirely_. There are benefits and costs to be weighed, and the memory of his last trip out gives him pause.

He sighs; it won’t be the first time he’s lost this battle. “I’ll see what I can do.”

-

The first night there’s a party, his least favorite kind, with flash bulbs and familiar faces and bad music, and he almost hates her for making him go until he sees that short black skirt of hers. It takes all of his strength not to follow her into the bathroom, like a stranger might, and fuck her against the wall until she calls his name.

“You owe me, Sackhoff,” he grits with a smile, halfway through the night.

“Don’t worry,” she says, and laughs at something some jerk-off he doesn’t know says into her ear.

It’s going to be a long night.

She talks about Bionic. He doesn’t have to pretend to be disinterested, evading questions about his guest spot. People in this town talk too damn much, and the fucking strike is getting to everybody. They’re nervous, and the room stinks of their fear.

Some budding starlet recognizes him and flirts with him at the bar where he smokes and drinks water. Katee dances with… well fucking _everybody_, glancing at him with bedroom eyes from across the room all night.

The ride home, he only lasts ten minutes in the limo before he’s got his fingers hooked around the wet material of her panties. She gasps into his mouth as he thumbs over her clit.

“Easy,” Callum breathes against her skin, withdraws his hand, “wouldn’t want to soil that cute skirt of yours.”

“Fucker,” she whines, and adjusts her clothes, pretending to be pissed the rest of the ride.

-

Back at her place, when he’s inside her, it’s like she remembers. Like that first time between takes in her dressing room, when he fucked her so hard she thought she wouldn’t be able to walk back onto the set. It was a good thing Starbuck was _supposed_ to have a limp in that episode. The director noticed a spark, she remembers, and added a little something to the scene. She nearly comes at the thought – his sly wink, her red face, and the thick lines between them that nobody else could see.

Secrets; she always found them so intoxicating. And that’s part of what makes him so irresistible. Her publicist will call. She doubts the fact that she spent a night out with Callum will go unnoticed. But she can’t think about that right now, not with him between her thighs, his teeth at her neck, his salty skin on her tongue, his cock filling her.

He whispers her name. She comes for the first time that night at the sound of it.

-

The next night they drive up the coast a few hours. She takes him to this back roads midnight diner where all the food is probably laden with the worst kind of artery clogging grease imaginable. But it also tastes better than anything he’s ever eaten in L.A. and nobody recognizes either of them, so they are left alone to talk for hours.

Katee’s smart. A fact he often forgets about her. That smile covers it up. Scratch the surface, and she’s someone else.

She tells him stories about Oregon and he tells her nothing of Canada. The little threads she pulls from him are by force or accident.

Old habits die hard, as they say.

Callum notices the way Katee's hands cradle around her mug, the way her lips curl up at the ends when she’s getting a new idea, how sometimes she morphs into Starbuck on rare moments - seconds, sometimes less - as much as she would deny it and hate him for thinking so.

-

They buy shitty coffee at a gas station and troll the beach, hours before sunrise. For a minute, the waves crashing before them, unseen in the dark, he allows himself to fall in love with California.

“See, this isn’t so bad,” she says like she can read his mind, and laces her fingers through his, her bare feet digging into the sand next to his.

“Katee,” he warns, and she hates that he uses her name like that – like a boundary between them.

“Cal,” she counters. There are lines she can’t cross, she knows. And maybe she doesn’t want to. But maybe she really _does._

“I go back tomorrow.” He says. It’s simple. He draws those lines. He always has. Even when it wasn't Katee sitting beside him.

“I know,” she says, offers a sheepish smile, and in that moment she is unlike how he has ever seen her – pleading and fragile and soft. “But you’re here now.” She kisses him. “You’re here now.”

It’s 3 am.


End file.
